New advancements around thermostats, wireless, Bluetooth lighting, apartment automation appliances and more are energizing the energy management market. The big news is that Nest Labs announced a developer program for integration with other manufacturers’ products—through Nest’s cloud—and its first partner is Control4, so users of that energy management control systems can see the temperature on a…
Category: New technology
What the acquisition of NEST by Google could mean for apartment owners
Google’s recent acquisition of intelligent thermostat and fire alarm-maker Nest could be a major disruption to the status quo in apartment automation. For decades, the dream of a “smart apartment” has been just that: a dream. The concept of an interconnected, intelligent apartment and common areas has been relegated to science fiction. Owners have not…
What do Energy Disclosure Laws and Electric Vehicles (EV) have in common?
How powerful would it be for property owners to know what their residents are going to do before they actually do it? To predict how they would react to certain amenities, or to intervene just before a resident loses loyalty and switches properties? Leading indicators can give owners a sense of where the economy is headed in the future, paving…
What is Intelligent Energy Efficiency?
Intelligent efficiency is the term used to describe the capability next-generation automated equipment and networks used in buildings, transportation, and manufacturing that have become adaptive to environmental inputs and self-optimizing in performance. This makes possible levels of performance that could not be achieved as recently as ten years ago. The energy savings that result from…
Visit a national Energy Lab
I recently visited the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, CO near Denver. The US Dept of Energy has several such laboratories and research centers spread throughout the country. Most of them welcome visitors during normal business hours. For a full listing, click here and then scroll down to the “Labs & Technology Centers” section….